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At first I thought that in order to do an ad-hoc deployment of a beta iPhone app, you had to burn the device's UUID of the target user into the app. (I use TestFlight to do it)

But a few days ago I came across http://retraceapp.com/, and you're able to download their app straight from their website.

I did get several security warnings, but I didn't think this was possible at all. Does someone know how they did this?

Update: The link is no longer available on the website.

Anthony
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    Just tried it and indeed it works. It is most definitely an enterprise account using ADHOC sign. The account will be banned soon unfortunately. – Javier Quevedo May 06 '13 at 14:06

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This looks like a Enterprise account app, which actually is not allowed to be distributed outside a company.

One can find the key ProvisionsAllDevices set to true in its provisioning profile. See here about that ProvisionsAllDevices vs ProvisionedDevices in embedded.mobileprovision

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epatel
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  • Interesting: https://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/enterprise/ That makes sense. If I'm developing an app for one specific business, I don't necessarily want to put it on the App Store. This would let me send it straight to that business without getting Apple involved. Nice... :) Thanks @epatel! – Anthony May 06 '13 at 14:19
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    @Antony You should not use an enterprise account for that. Use the B2B store instead. edit: https://developer.apple.com/programs/volume/b2b/ – Mike Weller May 06 '13 at 14:32
  • Interesting.. didn't know about that either. Thanks @MikeWeller! – Anthony May 06 '13 at 15:08
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I'm one of the Co-Founders of Retrace. We used an Enterprise developer account. Here's a link that explains more.

IOS Enterprise Distribution Through OTA

Apple contacted us after about 2 weeks and forced us to shut down the link and move to the App Store.

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Austin Marusco
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